Joule’s Brewery and the Offley Arms Steering Group are pleased to announce today that the Offley Arms has its future secured as a public house.

The pub has been closed for 18 months and has faced an uncertain future since doors closed in April 2018. Madeley village formed an action group ‘Offley Arms Steering Group’ in a bid to ensure the rescue of the famous old inn and its future use as a public house. The group consisting of many local residents, prepared a number of potential routes, including a village buy out, as well as securing the pub as community asset [ACV]. Deputy Chairman, Graham Fallows, approached Joule’s on behalf of the group and made a case for the local brewer to step in and save the pub. ‘We know Joule’s has a fondness for old inns and they are the most local to us, many of our members know Joule’s and it felt like a good fit – and of course it’s our local beer, a local brewer for a local pub. We knew that Joule’s has made several pub investments locally so we thought maybe they could help save the Offley. We were delighted when they responded to us so warmly and quickly, they showed great interest and moved incredibly quickly when we had almost no time before the property was due to go to auction. We approached Joules on the 15th of October and 7 days later they had bought it.”

Jason Whittaker, Commercial Director who responded to the steering group, comments.

“We are delighted to have secured the future of this great-looking village pub. It was a bit of a challenge because we had so little time to play with. However, we could see a great local community who passionately wanted to see their pub preserved and restored to its original glory. It is a lovely old village pub in the heart of our local area, and we had to respond to that. Pubs are vanishing before our eyes but they are the beating heart of so many small communities, so we were very happy to step in and pleased that the steering group chose to put their confidence in us.

We will now start work with the Steering group and look to create the best community pub we can, with the community so engaged then it makes our job easier. We are really looking forward to the challenge and the Offley re-opening as soon as possible.”

Follow the progress of the Offley Arms restoration by following us on Facebook @offleyarmsmadeley